The Latest from Olympic Show Jumping Gold Medalist, Beezie Madden (USA), on her European Tour

Show Jumper Beezie Madden (USA) blogs about the end of her first European Tour with her mare, Madmoiselle. More to come as she continues on her second European Tour with her gelding, Danny Boy.

Our third and final Tour 1 Super League show took place in St. Gallen Switzerland and finished last Sunday. The team was the same as in Rome and LaBaule with the exception of McLain who rode Rothchild in the Nations Cup instead of Sapphire. Since Sapphire had little to prove, Rothchild got the chance to do his first Nations Cup.

Unfortunately, we again did not have a good day as a team. The conditions were tough as it had rained most of the day on Thursday and most of Wednesday night causing the cancellation of all the classes on Thursday. They did allow the Nations Cup horses to jump a warm-up round on Thursday evening. The ground was still quite soft on Friday for the Cup, and some horses handled it well and others did not. Our first round was dismal again.

Richard had eight faults, McLain had 13, I had nine with Mademoiselle, and Mario rode anchor with five faults. The time allowed was very short and, along with the difficult conditions, made for tough jumping. The French team, however, came out firing again and was in the lead after the first round. Our second round was only slightly better.

Richard was clear, McLain had eight, I had a disappointing 13 faults, and Mario had nine. We finished a very disappointing 7th place. I think some of our horses were feeling the effects of having already done two Super League shows with a lot of traveling and not much time off.

In the Grand Prix, we had another mediocre showing. Richard placed 10th with five faults in the first round and four in the jump off. Mario also made it to the second round with four faults in the first (the top
13 from the first round came back for the jump off) and completed the jump off with eight faults. I had nine faults with Mademoiselle, so I did not have the performance I hoped for to make the team for WEG. I can't, however, be that disappointed with her since she jumped three Super League Grand Prix's, two with four faults and one with nine. Our process of getting to know each other is ongoing. And with a little more time under our belt, I feel we can be very competitive at the highest level.

My focus now has to be on Danny Boy and his performance at Rotterdam next week and later at Aachen. With good results at those two shows, he could be in striking distance of making the WEG team. Keep your fingers crossed for us!